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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26616829">bejeweled.</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes'>Quecksilver_Eyes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Narnia Musings [59]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Chronicles of Narnia - All Media Types, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Fluff, Romance, This is a birthday present for a friend, here's aravis adoring lasaraleen to make up for it, i read a horse and his boy, they're Soft Wives</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 05:47:13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>612</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26616829</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quecksilver_Eyes/pseuds/Quecksilver_Eyes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aravis’ love is laid bare in front of her, with her eyes dark, with her skin wrapped in gold, something like laughter in her throat. Lasaraleen’s hands are in her hair, spread open and heavy; ring adorned and bejeweled. She’s singing softly, something holy and blasphemous tangled in Aravis’ ribs and smeared like fruit on her lips.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aravis Tarkheena/Lasaraleen Tarkheena</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Narnia Musings [59]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1714795</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>bejeweled.</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    
<p></p><blockquote>
  <p>my love lies<br/>
               gentle and sweet;<br/>
                              sun-kissed<br/>
in these arms</p>
  <p>mother, she has taken off<br/>
               her chainmail and her scimitar<br/>
and all her words</p>
  <p>to lie;<br/>
               darling, loved.<br/>
a jewel in my sheets</p>
  <p>you gods, how do you compare<br/>
               to my love’s kiss?</p>
  <p>
    <em>– a Calormene love poem, most commonly attributed to the Tarkheena Lasaraleen</em>
  </p>
</blockquote><p> </p><p> </p><p>Aravis’ love is laid bare in front of her, with her eyes dark, with her skin wrapped in gold, something like laughter in her throat. Lasaraleen’s hands are in her hair, spread open and heavy; ring adorned and bejeweled. She’s singing softly, something holy and blasphemous tangled in Aravis’ ribs and smeared like fruit on her lips.</p><p>Somewhere, tucked into Lasaraleen’s jewelry and her voice, Aravis lies with her eyes half closed and her armor unclasped, her chainmail in a corner of the room, in Lasaraleen’s lap. Somewhere, in between one word and another, Lasaraleen kisses her with all the sweetness of the sugared fruit on her lips. Sometime long after the aches of leaving home have left Aravis with her bones hollow and her prayers heavy in her pockets, Lasaraleen curls around her, singing and laughing and as warm as the sun that raised them both.</p><p>Lasaraleen’s hands are soft and trembling; unused and calm. There’s gold in her hair and gold on her skin and if Aravis was a poet, she would write ballads about the way she smiles. Or, perhaps, about the way she kisses, laid upon pillows and blankets and expensive gowns, sugar on her lips and Aravis’ heart heavy in the cavity of her chest. She might write stanzas about Lasaraleen and dresses – bejeweled and adorned and intricate things delicate enough to leave Aravis breathless at the sight of her.</p><p>As it is, she’s not a poet. She’s just Aravis, with her hands rough by now, with her brother’s chainmail and her brother’s scimitar and her brother’s love on her back. She’s just Aravis, with her heart in her throat and her words tied to her tongue.</p><p>“I should write songs about you”, she says and Lasaraleen kisses the corner of her mouth.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>Aravis hums. “About your eyes”, she says, and reaches up for her. Lasaraleen smiles. “Or about your kisses. About your heart.”</p><p>“My heart?”</p><p>Aravis kisses her, gold spun and dark as a night sky, draped around her. Lasaraleen tastes of sugared fruit and the lazy Calormene morning sun, spun all about her. She tastes of nights spent tucked into broom closets, Lasaraleen’s skirt hiked up, Aravis’ feet bare, their laughter stretched between both their lungs, like the world balanced on the tips of their tongues.</p><p>“Your heart”, she says.</p><p> </p><p>Once, when they were just children and Aravis’ heart was a fluttering bird in the cage of her ribs, Lasaraleen dragged her into the kitchen during a feast, past the servants and their families with their smiles fixed on their faces. “Come with me”, she’d said, when Aravis’ hand was already in hers, when Aravis’ heart was already hers and had long since folded itself into her smile.</p><p>They’d spent the entire evening sitting on the stone floor with their skirts in their laps, their lips honeyed; their laughter a continuous force. Aravis was all but lying across Lasaraleen, with her sugared fingers on the fabric of Lasaraleen’s dress, her breath stuck somewhere under her diaphragm.</p><p>That night, in that busy kitchen, when Aravis had barely started to grow into her own voice, she knew that this was how she wanted to spend her life; entangled and laughing and with Lasaraleen’s sugar on her lips and on her hands.</p><p>It would be all the world that she would ever need.</p>
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